


not a handsome rogue but maybe close enough

by peradi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, Redemption, and no one wanted, but i wanted to write, criminals, rey in force visions, so here is a bit of fic that no one asked for, so it annoyed me that this guy had so much potential and then didn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 12:05:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13076520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peradi/pseuds/peradi
Summary: In the Gardens of the Living Force on Albion VII, DJ takes a break to have a tall glass of Naboo’s finest exported whisky. He’s two sips in when a wavering shape coalesces in front of him: a man with a beard, wearing long brown robes.“Something has awoken – “ he begins, but DJ recognises him from old films; he’s already on his feet, knocking back the whisky (no point in wasting good booze).“Fuck that,” he says, “fuck you, fuck this.”--DJ the slicer discovers that he cannot escape his destiny, no matter how hard he tries.





	not a handsome rogue but maybe close enough

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr @ peradii. I felt like writing something about this guy, so here you go.

In the Gardens of the Living Force on Albion VII, DJ takes a break to have a tall glass of Naboo’s finest exported whisky. He’s two sips in when a wavering shape coalesces in front of him: a man with a beard, wearing long brown robes. 

“Something has awoken – “ he begins, but DJ recognises him from old films; he’s already on his feet, knocking back the whisky (no point in wasting good booze).

“Fuck that,” he says, “fuck you, fuck this.”

And off he goes. 

 

–

 

After using a good portion of the First Order’s payment on Trisella the Marvellous, the finest whore in the Pleasure Quadrant of the Noel Cluster, DJ limps to the refresher and has a long, hot shower, working the kinks from his shoulders, shuffling from one foot to the other, wondering if his prostate will ever be the same again. The refresher is shining gold, the water sapphire-blue – coloured by underground mineral deposits – and it’s like sitting inside the crown jewels of Alderaan. He uses some of the ambrosia-scented oils to slick his hair back, pads to the sink, and examines himself in the mirror. 

“Y-y-you handsome bastard,” he says, and smirks. He likes his smirk. It’s lopsided, but it screams _handsome rogue_ _with a heart of gold_. It’s a good mask. It’s fooled a lot of people. 

“Human,” purrs Trisella. “You’ve paid for the night – come back for the second round.”

DJ steels himself, mustering reservoirs of strength he didn’t know he had and – 

Something in the mirror catches his eye. It’s a girl with brown hair, bold eyes. 

“You’re not Ren,” she says. Her eyes flicker down; DJ is too astonished to cover himself. “You’re  _ definitely  _ not Ren.”

“R-r-ren? As in K-k-kylo?” says DJ. 

“Yes.”

The rest of the mirror is fogging up; the girl’s outline blurs. 

“Why is the Force showing me you?” she says. 

“The Force?” says DJ. 

“Yes – “

“No. Fucking no.”

 

–

 

There is no religion in the gorgeous, glittering spires of Canton Bight. There is corruption, decadence, and if the manager of the Acada Hotel is confused by DJ’s insistence that all mirrors be removed from his suite she doesn’t say so. He’s got enough money to quell complaint; enough money to pay some of Canto Bight’s finest goons to hunt down the bastards who got him imprisoned in the first place. He’s been here for three weeks, and there’s no sign of strange Force ghosts. 

_ Live free; don’t join.  _

He drinks, gambles, and deliberately loses at Sabacc to the beautiful heiress of the Capercaillie fortune. As compensation, she invites him along to the fathier races. Her box is ivory and gold, bedecked in glitter and chrome, lit from below by aquarium flooring stuffed with luminous algae. Opalescent fish squirm between the algae clumps, struggling for space. 

“That’s my father’s animal,” says Kalliope. “That one there. Isn’t she magnificent? We paid the price of a small planet for her.”

She indicates with a flourish of one elegant hand, adjusting the fur around her throat with the other. 

DJ isn’t really a judge of stock but he does notice that the fathier is

( _ scarred _ )

large, with brown

( _ sad _ )

eyes. The jockey

( _ child _ )

fiddes with the saddles straps, tightening them up. The handler

( _ overseer _ )

plays with his whip, running it through his fingers. It’s a scrap of blue-white lightning, flickering and dancing. DJ’s felt the flash of that whip before; he could well feel it again. That’s how the world works: it goes round and round like a wheel, some on top and some below, some crushed beneath. And some stuck in the spokes. And people bicker over who get to spin the wheel, and that is the way of the universe.

Beneath the box, another overseer backhands one of the jockeys ( _ children _ ) across the face, for no other tangible reason than he feels like it, and DJ fixes his eyes on the race. The wheel. The wheel. He was beneath, and now he stands on top, and he takes a sip of neon green alcohol. It shoots straight to his head

 

–

 

DJ wakes up in the fathier stable shit-heap. He claws his way out of the straw and stumbles to his feet. His coat is some distance away. Something – probably him – has pissed on it. 

_ The wheel _ , he thinks, and pukes on the floor. Mopping his mouth, he looks around. The stables are arranged in a semi-circle, doors angled towards the track. The little jockeys are up already – the sky is still navy with night, stars fading to silver smudges – and some are watching him warily. 

“Sorry kiddos,” he says, tugging his coat on, gesturing vaguely towards the vomit. “You’ll have to mop that up.” He frisks himself down. Fuck. All his credits are gone. It’s plausible that one of the little shits that work here has robbed him, but it’s more likely that he’s spent the coins on some go at sabacc.

“You should go that way,” says one of the little things: a boy with big blue eyes, an oversized ring flashing on his fourth finger as he points to a side door.  “The overseers patrol everywhere else. If they catch you, they’ll kill you.”

“Uh. Thanks?”

“You look like shit,” says the little boy. He twiddles his ring. “But thank you.”

“What did I do?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Kiddo, the last thing I remember is – “

Neon green; Kalliope’s smile; the flash of gold?

The boy smiles thinly; there’s the unmistakable sound of an overseer shouting, the snap-crack of an electric whip; the howl of a fathier. 

“May the Force be with you,” says the boy. “May Skywalker light your path. Go. Go!”

DJ obeys. 

  
  


–

 

The next day DJ sees a mural on the side of one of Canto’s scummier bars. It’s a huge burned orange symbol, two horns curving towards each other, a flame bursting from between them. The symbol of the Resistance. 

He watches as the locals wash it away. 

_ It’s nothing, it’s nothing.  _

_ Don’t join.  _

_ Stay free.  _

 

_ – _

 

A week later, and he is at the fathier track again – this time minus Kalliope, because apparently whatever he did when he was blackout drunk was enough to get him kicked out of her good books (and bed) pretty permanently. He’s midway through selling some counterfeit deathsticks to a clutch of spoiled little shits when the boy jockey shows up. 

“Daddy! I missed you!”

Suddenly the boy is affixed to his waist. Before DJ can kick him away, the would-be customers have fucked off. 

DJ shoves the boy away, backhanding him for good measure. The boy grins up, incorrigible, even when he’s sprawled on the floor. A faurier – maybe hearing the smack – brays in anger, sticking her vast head out of her stable door. 

“What the hell?”

“They’re informants,” says the boy. He hops to his feet, holds out one hand and a broom whisks into it – 

A broom. Moves of its own accord. 

( _ something is awakening – ) _

“I was helping you,” finishes the boy, “because when you were here about a week ago, you were drunk and rambling but you gave me some credits and told me that you felt bad about the beatings I got.”

“T-t-that’s where the credits went,” says DJ. He stares at the broom, the boy.

“Something’s waking up. Don’t be afraid; I’m feeling it too you know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Yes,” says the boy. “You do.”

“I’m going to tell them that you painted the mural. You’ll be sh-sh-shot in the street.”

“No you won’t. You know that no one who has got caught up in this will ever be the same again – “

“I don’t know what you’re talking about you little  _ cunt _ ,” DJ  _ shouts _ ; he never raises his voice; he didn’t meant to; but panic surges under his skin like lightning. The wheel, the whips, on top and crushed by turns and – 

“Yes you do. You’re not –”

DJ pants like an animal run to ground, turns around, his coat swinging out behind him. 

And he runs. 

 

–

 

He leaves Canto Bight, steals a ship, dumps that, hitches a lift with a smuggler, sells the smuggler out to kanjiklubs men, poses as a First Order captain and ends up in the shittiest bar he’s ever seen, bent-shouldered over his fifth (eighth?) drink of the night. Hour. Whatever.

“I-i-it’s like, it’s like, y’know when th-things are  _ meant _ right, you know when i-i-it’s  _ destiny _ and you’re like f-f-fuck that, fuck  _ all of that _ because it isn’t your  _ gig _ it isn’t what you  _ do _ and the Force is a m-m-mother _ fucker _ who says  _ bitch you are mine _ and gets you b-b-back because she  _ owns you _ b-b-because you ended up in a s-s-story that you didn’t want, right. Right?”

The bartender hops onto the bar and crawls towards him. She’s got these big, glowy eyes, like aquariums, only no fish, only the reflection of the bar’s dingy lights and  _ fucking Force _ DJ is wasted. 

“The Force doesn’t care if you want the call or not. It just calls. It’s energy, it’s everything, it knows who has a part in the story,” she says. She’s orange.  _ Orange _ . And how big is her head, why is it so big. 

“The fuck does that mean.”

“It means pay your tab, you reprobate. And think about it. You just  _ happened _ to be put in the same cell as those Force-touched children. Finn the saint. Rose the saviour.”

DJ staggers up, trying very hard to swallow back bile. “Fuck off.”

“You have a part in this, you little bastard. What, you think only Skywalkers get big redemption stories?”

“Fuck off!” he shouts. People are staring. A thing with too many tentacles and not enough eyes oozes towards him, wielding a club the size of a sapling. The orange thing behind the bar waves one hand. 

“Easy there, Trevor. Our friend was going to pay and go.” 

DJ slaps down a handful of change. 

“Run as far as you like, DJ. You’re not getting away.”

 

–

 

DJ’s drunk at another bar, lightyears away from anywhere, when a massive bug creature shambles over. 

“You’re the fucker who sold out my aunt,” it says. 

The patrons of this bar are used to altercations; they part like water, allowing space for the inevitable disembowelment. DJ goes for his blaster, but a human with rancid breath and one eye grabs his wrist. She shoves her face up to his. “You sold out my friend’s aunt to the Republic, you prick. She’s doing fifty years in a penal colony – all she did was sell a couple of hundred slaves.”

“I mean, it sounds like she deserves it,” says DJ. The woman twists his arm behind his back; pain lanches through his bones. 

She sniffs, wrinkles her nose. “Why does your coat smell like piss?”

“Haven’t cleaned it in a while.”

“You’re disgusting,” says the bug creature. He’s head and shoulders above DJ, with mandibles that ooze opalescent venom. His eyes are huge, fractured, like massive emeralds set onto his bulbous head. “You don’t have a fucking principle. You posed as a buyer. She  _ trusted _ you.”

“Plenty have done. Nothing personal. It’s all profit.”

They haul him into the alley behind the bar. There’s already a corpse there, minus half its head. Gore streaks the wall. It’s still not in the Top Ten Most Disgusting Alleys DJ has ever been in. 

“Get on your knees.”

DJ obeys. This is how he dies. The wheel crushes him at last.

“Look,” he says. “I’ve got money; I can pay – “

The woman slaps him. “We don’t care about money. We want blood.”

“D-d-does it have to be m-mine? I know the name of the judge who sentenced your aunt – “

“We want yours!”

“Y-y-you know, because I bet I can slice into that p-p-penal colony’s records a-a-and – “

“You never stop squirming, do you?”

“O-o-of course not! I want to  _ live _ ,” snaps DJ, and just like that something in his mind  _ opens _ . 

DJ closes his eyes and breathes in. Air fills every corner of his lungs and he hears the scrape of the bug’s feet, the glugging beat of the woman’s heart. Reflected in that orange bartender’s goggles: the girl with brown hair and bold eyes,  _ not only Skywalkers have a story _ . _ That’s the story.  _

“What –”

DJ  _ pushes _ . Something bursts behind his eyes: white and glaring, like hyperspeed.  _ Something has awoken _ , and the whole galaxy is  _ singing _ . 

A woman’s yell; the smack of a body on a wall. DJ jolts back to himself: the woman is lying a good ten feet away at the back of the alley, blood pouring from her nose. The bug is staring at him in disbelief. 

“What did you  _ do _ ,” he says, taking a step back. A Jedi Knight would have pushed home his advantage, continued the attack; a rogue smuggler with a heart of gold would have said something witty. 

DJ is a slicer who reeks of piss. “Fuck off,” he says, and bolts.

  
  


–

  
  


“The First Order’s willing to pay a pretty credit for information leading to the discovery of Force users,” says Thistleback. He’s a Mandalorian, but he was kicked out of that proud warrior culture for being a lying, cheating dickbag. 

He’s one of DJ’s best – well,  _ friend _ is the wrong word, because a man like DJ doesn’t have friends, only people he has yet to sell out; people who are of more benefit to him on side than in prison or dead.  _ Potential mark _ would be a good substitute; or  _ bastard who has yet to betray me _ . 

Anyway: he’s known Thistleback for years. He’s a useful bastard with a deathstick problem and he works for the First Order as an informant. He may look like the rank afterbirth of a wampa’s abortion, but he’s damn good at his job. He knows everything about everyone and if he says that there’s money to be made, there’s money to be made. The First Order bounty for the two Resistance 

( _ Rose and Finn) _

kids that DJ turned over is beginning to run low. He could do with another injection of cash. 

DJ thinks of the boy, the broom, the fathier stables. Canto Bight is not too far away.

“G-g-got to find one of those then,” he says, knocking back his drink. “Haven’t seen any yet. “

  
  


–

 

In another lifetime, DJ would have been delighted to find a young, pretty girl in his ship. Times have changed. The mirror girl is back.

“Not you  _ again _ .”

“Who  _ are _ you?” says the girl. “And why do you never wear clothes?”

“Stop appearing to me when I’m just out of the refresher,” says DJ, grabbing a pair of trousers off the floor, giving them a cursory sniff. He wrinkles his nose. They’re a bit ripe but eh, he doesn’t care, and he doubts the hallucinatory visitor has a sense of smell. He pulls them on. The girl’s face is screwed up in disgust. 

“Believe me, I don’t want to appear to you like this. I don’t want to appear here at  _ all _ . But this keeps happening.”

“Y-y-you keep seeing n-n-naked men? Maybe you should, uh, get – “

There’s something sharp in the girl’s eyes; DJ has an acutely developed sense of when to shut the fuck up. So he does. 

“I keep seeing people. Random people. Sometimes it’s – sometimes it’s  _ him  _ – but there’s also been a trophy wife, three separate Twi’Leks who like orgies.” Pink flags appear on her cheeks. “And a little boy – “

“With a broom,” DJ fills in. He opens up his drinks cabinet, which is a fancy way of saying Cupboard Full Of Moonshine. “C-c-can you drink?”

“Uh – “

He pours two glasses anyway, kicks a mountain of shit off the table and sits down. The girl picks her way to the chair opposite him.

“You live like this?”

“I live free, d-d-darling. No one to tell me what to do.”

“There’s a difference between living free and living in filth.”

“Not for me.”

“Hm. I keep seeing people. And I think that – “

“It’s the Force, isn’t it? Mother _ fuck _ .” DJ downs his drink. The girl hasn’t made a move towards the one who poured for her, so he takes it and has a good swig. It burns the back of his throat; his eyes water. 

“It’s people in whom the Force has awoken, yes. People who are just starting to discover their powers. I was only the first one. Have you been dreaming of an island?”

“No. But I have had a vision of that – that guy from the holos – what’s his name? Larry Skywalker?”

“ _ Luke _ . You had a vision of  _ Luke _ .”

“I was at the Gardens of the Living Force. Tourist trap. G-g-good drinks though.”

“What did you do?” The girl is leaning forwards, her face open and avid and, beneath that, achingly sad. DJ finishes his drink.

“Fucked off.”

The girl snaps back, shows her teeth. “You – you – you  _ ran away _ .”

“Of course I did. Larry – “

“Luke!”

“–gets people killed. I’ve seen the films. I don’t want to join one side or the other. Don’t join; stay free.”

“You’re not free,” the girl says. “You’re a slave to your own cowardice and greed.”

“Hey! I’m not a coward. I’m just greedy. There’s a difference. I’m just DJ the slicer, I’m not – “

“Wait? DJ? As in the DJ who betrayed my friends? Rose and Finn – you sold them to the First Order!”

“I’ve betrayed a lot of people darling,” says DJ, stretching a tight smile over his jangled nerves. 

“You – you – “

“Swear, darling. I-i-it will make you feel better.”

“You dickfuck!”

“Nah, swear better. C-c-call me a cunt. C-c-c-call me the son of a whore. Call me  _ worthless little fuck _ ,” and he doesn’t know at what point he stood but he’s standing, he’s shouting, his throat is raw, his fingernails biting white crescents into his palms. 

The girl stares at him. He pants for breath.

“You know,” she says, “DJ. You  _ might _ want to do some introspection. Just a bit. I’m not doing it for you. Last time I endangered myself to redeem some man it didn’t go too well.”

“People only redeem themselves if they want to. You can’t  _ make _ anyone do anything,” says DJ. 

The girl nods. “You’re right. No matter how much I might want to. I can point things out to people, I can  _ ask  _ – but unless they  _ choose _ then there’s no point.”

“Precisely. And I  _ choose _ to get drunk and forget that this little encounter ever happened.”

The girl rolls her eyes. “Fine. That’s your choice. It’s a stupid choice.”

With this, she fades away. DJ goes to get up to fetch his bottle and – 

It’s already there. Levitating. 

“Funny joke, d-d-darling,” he says. No reply. And then – fearing the outcome, but at the same time  _ knowing  _ it – he thinks  _ come here _ and holds out his hand. 

The bottle floats those last few inches and settles against his palm. 

 

–

 

The next morning, feeling like the universe’s biggest prat, DJ sits cross-legged on the floor of his ship and closes his eyes. He breathes, in and out.  _ Come on, come on, come on, show me what this is all about – _

Nothing happens for a good few heartbeats. His left bollock itches; he ignores it. And then he exhales, and he feels something  _ flow _ . It’s like nothing he’s ever felt, and yet it is profoundly familiar; a full-body sigh of  _ yes, here,  _ **_home_ ** _.  _

He opens his eyes, picks out a bottle of moonshine about six feet away and holds out his hand. “Come here,” he says. He focuses. It wobbles. He grits his teeth and strains harder.  _ I’m going to shit myself trying to get this Force-damn bottle –  _

 

The glass bottle explodes and all the shards of glass shoot to him like a squadron of X Wings. He yells in panic, throws his arms up, and his first experiments with the Force end in him plucking broken glass out of his coat and the back of his hands. 

Of course, that’s when he gets a call from the universe’s worst scumbag. No, not that one: the ginger one. 

 

–

 

“Mr Stayfree,” sneers Hux. He never  _ says _ anything: he always sneers. Because he’s so much  _ better _ than everyone else. Just because he’s never killed a man with his bare hands, or pissed on his own coat.

(DJ is going to clean that at some point. Really. Even if he is used to the smell by now.)

“Hiya General,” says DJ. His heart leaps into the base of his throat and the sharp pain of his glass-spangled hands is all but forgotten. Has someone bugged his ship? “To what do I owe the honour of this call?”

“You are good at what you do. You have shown yourself to be a valuable asset. To that end, I would like to recruit your services again. The First Order requires Force users of any breed or age. Find some, comm me when you do and you will be generously rewarded.”

“I mean, thanks for the offer General, but I’ve actually –”

“You misunderstand. This is not an offer.”

“I’m more  _ f-f-freelance _ than angling for one side or the other, if you see what I mean.”

“ _ I  _ do know what you mean. Our new Supreme Leader is not of that opinion. He does not believe in shades of grey, or not choosing a side.”

“Ah. In which case, I’ll – I’ll see what I can do.”

“Don’t  _ see what you can do _ . Bring me some Force users. I will pay you three million credits for each one, and a further million credits for your time.”

The call disconnects with a derisive, final click. DJ pulls a final splinter of glass from the back of his hand. Four million credits. That’s twice what he got for Rose and Finn. 

_ Don’t join. Stay free. _

He sets his coordinates for Canto Bight.

 

–

 

The boy refuses to leave without his friends, and they refuse to leave without their fathiers, and so DJ ends up stealing a huge, clunky transport ship and posing as a Capercaillie employee, there to escort the fathiers to winter pastures. He’s learned enough about that particular family from his time with Kalliope to bluff his way through. 

It’s a long, laborious journey: the ship doesn’t have the capability to jump to lightspeed. After a while, all the little jockeys bed down with their fathiers. All save the boy.

“Do you see what I mean now?” he says, hanging out in the cockpit, playing with a scrap of paper: levitating it around his head like a tiny moon orbiting a sun. DJ doesn’t know how to get rid of him; he’s not good with children. So he pours himself a drink, leans back in his chair. “Do you  _ feel  _ it?”

DJ takes his hands away from his glass. It floats. With a moment of focus, he sends it after the paper. The boy giggles, and the glass and paper chase each other around: up and down, left and right. 

“My name’s Noel by the way,” says the boy. “I don’t have a surname. We don’t tend to. I’m not sure who my mama is, or my papa – they sold me when I was very little. I’ve not really felt the Force before, I never believed in it because everything was just so  _ terrible,  _ and then I met Rose and Finn, and they told me about Luke Skywalker and now all this magical stuff is happening and things are finally getting better and –”

“For fuck’s sake!” The glass drops; Noel catches it, because of course he does, he doesn’t want his new friend’s possession breaking. “Fuck!” 

DJ spins towards the control panel, hits a few keys, and turns the ship around. 

“You happy now?” he shouts. 

Noel, alarmed, says: “Who are you talking to?”

“The Force damn Force. The universe. I’m taking you to the Resistance. Fuck’s sake. Sold at birth, of course you were.”

“You mean you  _ weren’t  _  –”

“Hux can  _ keep _ his reward.”

“You were  _ going to –  _ “

“Yeah, but I’m not. And that’s what matters.”

 

–

 

Weeks later, and DJ finally meets the mirror girl in the flesh. “My name’s Rey,” she says, offering him a cold compress. He grabs it off her, eases it against his aching, swollen eye. “And you deserved that punch. Finn could have done a lot worse.

“Yeah, I know. I’m a prick. I’m only here because the First Order will probably conscript me. Or feed me to Kylo Ren. I’m not too sure; the rumours are a bit wild.”

“Hm. You know, I can see your heart,” Rey says, sitting beside him. The new Resistance base is a mess; the medbay has three meddroids, only one of which actually works. The other two just dispense painkillers and erectile dysfunction medication pretty much at random, which is just awkward for everyone. They need a slicer to reprogramme them. 

And now they have one. 

“Yeah? What’s my heart like then?”

“A mess. Light. Dark. Greed. Regret. You’ve done terrible things. Lots of people have died because of you, but when everything was down to the bone you chose to come here. You chose to save lives. Others didn’t.” She chews her lower lip. “I knew someone who didn’t. I thought he would, and he didn’t. He somehow became worse than before.”

“You know, you’d be justified in locking me up. Or shooting me.”

“Yeah. But we need you, so here we are. And you’re a Force user – and since I’m the official Keeper of the Jedi Texts, that means that you fall under my jurisdiction.”

“Oh  _ g-g-great.” _

“Welcome to the Resistance,” she says, all too cheerily. “I’m sure if you do enough good they’ll stop beating you up.”

“I  _ hate _ doing good.”

“I know. But you do it anyway. And that’s what matters. And I can read your mind, so if you’re going to betray us I can have you thrown out an airlock.”

“You’re a terrible person.”

“No. I’m  _ good _ . It doesn’t mean nice.”

“Fair enough.”

“Now come on padawan. We’re going to start training you.”

  
  
  



End file.
